Honestly... I don't know. Nothing about the process is transparent AFAIK. If I'm a bank with billions of dollars worth of money from third parties, can't I us

Honestly... I don't know. Nothing about the process is transparent AFAIK. If I'm a bank with billions of dollars worth of money from third parties, can't I use a big portion of that money to profit? Moving money around, gaming the currencies, stocks, etc. Maybe I'm too naive at this, but in my mind, they have to keep some money ready for people to pick up, but the rest of it, they use it for whatever they want. If I go to my bank and ask to take a large sum of cash, they won't give it to me right away. They profit when money is not at your hands, therefore even if people do get their money back some day, they would have already profited from it. I'm quite intrigued by this topic, but never got around to really dive into it, so please... if you can educate me on how this is not profitable for financial institutions, I'd be glad to read it!